Protect

May

Gomshall to Westhumble

Early May and I can almost feel the sap rising by touching the smooth trunk of a beech tree. After the tentative first steps of spring there is a rush to leaf as every tree unwraps its new soft, shiny green leaves ready for sunshine and a summer of growth. I am bathed in green light walking under the trees again after a long winter of bare branches. The energy is so powerful I would hear its hum if I could tune my ears to the frequency.

Up on the North Downs in the chalk country, an ancient, fragile land with old tracks and coppiced hazel, views south deep into the fertile valley and up to the Greensand ridge beyond. The National Trust protects these hills at Blatchford and White Downs. Shady woods and chalky meadows shimmer with a gift of wildflowers and later there will be orchids among the grass.

This ancient trackway, pilgrimage route and ribbon of green is something else as well. Along the hillside, strung like a necklace of bricks and concrete, a line of pillboxes built in 1940 as part of London’s defences. This thin line was a chance to protect the city, to stop the march of an invading force.

Like toy forts in a landscaped estate, these brick defences look small and vulnerable. It is hard to imagine how long their guns could stall an approaching army, even if the troops had to climb up the steep side of the downs to reach them. London was far more vulnerable to attack by air and the idea of invaders approaching by land across the Surrey estates is a script from a war games fantasy.

Inside, the pill box is dark and smelly, dry leaves crunch but instead of bullets a stream of green light flows in through the loopholes. Is this the bunker, is this how we survive, protect ourselves, cut off from the light, spring, from the energy of growth and renewal? Step outside.

North Downs Way: https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/north-downs-way/

Naming of Parts, poem by Henry Reed 1914-1986